“Everyone who finally ‘gets it’ about climate change has an ‘Oh, shit’
moment,” Mark Hertsgaard observes in Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty
Years on Earth, “an instant when the pieces fall into place, the full
implications of the science at last become clear, and you are left
staring in horror at the monstrous situation humanity has created for
itself.” I’ve had countless such moments. And for a climate policy nerd
like me, Hertsgaard’s basic storyline is familiar—the climate impacts
and the hopeful solutions. Arrogantly perhaps, I thought my eyes were as
wide open as they could get. But two aspects of this book made it
surprisingly cathartic for me.

The second eye-opener is Hertsgaard’s focus on adaptation, a topic long
forbidden in environmental circles as a signal of surrender. But coping
efforts must now move forward as rapidly as mitigation to “manage the
unavoidable and avoid the unmanageable,” as Hertsgaard puts it.
Particularly intriguing to me is the idea that tackling adaptation may
prove to be a badly needed stepping stone—an engagement strategy—for
those dragging their feet on mitigation.

As I read, I ticked off the names of friends who should read
this book—friends who know there’s a problem and who’d do anything to
protect their kids, but for whom the appropriate response remains a
mystery.

There are lots of reasons mitigation efforts have stalled (the power of
fossil fuel lobbies and the multimillion-dollar campaign aimed at
discrediting the science of global warming come to mind). But we may
also be hard-wired for foot-dragging. The human brain has trouble
visualizing a future different from the past; fear shuts us down rather
than stirring us to action; and we’re good at filtering information that
conflicts with our worldview. Rather than changing our minds, piling on
more scientific evidence actually risks further entrenching
preconceived notions.

Adaptation charts a middle path. It takes a problem of atmospheric
proportions and makes it local—and far more concrete. Focus on the
imperative to protect ourselves and our assets makes it easier to come
to terms with the problem. Hertsgaard illustrates this with examples of
governments—from cities on up—building infrastructure and developing
policy designed for the reality of climate change.

Although it sometimes borders on cliché, Hertsgaard’s fatherly lens
nonetheless gave me license to grapple with the emotional dimensions of
global warming, fears that I’d kept well compartmentalized. Would
someone outside sustainability policy circles feel the same way, I
wondered? As I read, I ticked off the names of friends who should read
this book—friends who know there’s a problem and who’d do anything to
protect their kids, but for whom the appropriate response remains a
mystery.

Climate change has arrived a century earlier than predicted. We can’t
avoid it. Still, anger and despair, while appropriate, aren’t going to
get us far. Taking action to avoid the worst, Hertsgaard argues, has now
become “part of a parent’s job description, no less vital than tending
to your child’s diet, health, or education.” But how? That’s the
question that stops even the most informed and motivated among us.

Most of the book is devoted to successful actions being taken around the
world to prepare for climate disruption (as well as some of the biggest
failures to do so) and some time is spent outlining policy-level
solutions and the opportunities they represent (a “Green Apollo
Program,” a price on carbon in the form of a cap-and-­dividend policy,
energy efficiency incentives, and investments in clean-energy
technology). But only the final chapter touches on what an individual
might actually start doing tomorrow, say. Get involved. Join the
movement. Stand up against industry’s control over energy policy. Push
for clean energy sources. Demand accountability from our lawmakers.
Easier said than done, but easier to do than many might think. And
time’s a-wasting.

One thing to do right now is to go online and check out Hertsgaard’s
campaign to “throw the bums out” by naming and shaming elected officials
he dubs climate cranks. It’s time to turn up the heat on policy makers
at every level of government. Tell them your kids sent you!

Interested?

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Anna Fahey reviewed this book for Beyond Prisons, the Summer 2011 issue of YES! Magazine. Anna is communications strategist at Sightline Institute, a sustainability policy think tank in Seattle.